VATICAN - Pope Benedict XVI celebrates first Holy Week Rite: “Palm Sunday tells us that the real important "yes" is the Cross, that precisely the Cross is the true tree of life. We find our life not by living it jealously for ourselves but by living it for others. Love is giving of self, this is why the Cross symbolises the path of true life”

Monday, 10 April 2006

Vatican City (Fides Service) - On Palm Sunday April 9 Pope Benedict XVI presided Mass in a sun-flooded St Peter’s Square filled with visitors in Rome for Holy Week and Easter many of them young people since the day was also Diocesan World Youth Day. At the start of his homily the Pope said: “For twenty years now, thanks to Pope John Paul II, Palm Sunday has been a special Day for Youth - the day when young people all over the world go to meet Christ and accompany him into their cities and towns that He may be in our midst and his peace may take root in our world”. The final act of the Palm Sunday celebration was the handing over of World Youth Day Cross and Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary from German youth from the diocese of Cologne to Australian youth from the archdiocese of Sydney chosen to host the next international World Youth Day in 2008.
The Pope went on the explain the significance and importance today of the events of the first ‘Palm Sunday’: “Jesus enters the Holy City riding a mule, an animal used by simple country people, and what is more it was not even his own, he borrowed it for the occasion”. Only after his resurrection the disciples realised that in doing this “Jesus was fulfilling the words of the prophets, he was acting according to the Word of God bringing it to completion”. The Pope then remarked on three aspects of the future king announced by the prophets. First of all he will be king of the poor, a poor man among the poor and for the poor: “Poverty as Jesus means it- as the prophets mean it - consists of inner freedom from the avidity of possession and craving for power… It is a question first of all of purifying our heart so we realise that possession is a responsibility, a duty towards others, it is letting ourselves be seen by God and led by Christ who was rich and for us became poor (cfr 2 Cor 8,9)”.
The second aspect is that He will be a king of peace: “He will make the war chariots and battle horses disappear, break the bows and proclaim peace … Jesus puts a new weapon in our hands, the Cross - the sign of reconciliation, the sign that love is stronger than death. Every time we make the sign of the Cross we should remember never to fight injustice with injustice, or violence with violence; we should remember that we can only conquer evil with good, never by responding to evil with evil”. The third aspect is the universal nature of the reign: “the kingdom of the king of peace will extend from ‘sea to sea… to the far corners of the earth… the space of the messianic king is no longer one particular country which could separate itself from the others and therefore inevitably take a position against the others. His nation is the earth, the whole world”.
“All three characteristics announced by the prophet- poverty, peace, universality - are summarised in the sign of the Cross- Benedict XVI concluded -. This is why the Cross has rightly become the centre of World Youth Days. In the past - and even today - precisely because of the Cross, Christianity was rejected. People said the Cross speaks of sacrifice, the cross is a sign which annuls life...However Palm Sunday tells us that the real important "yes" is precisely the Cross, that the Cross is the true tree of life. We find our life not by living it jealously for ourselves but by living it for others. Love is giving of self and this is why the Cross symbolises the path of true life”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 10/4/2006 - righe 42, parole 665)


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